OUT among the new addicts whose young lives are spiralling away in psychosis, at border control checkpoints which increasingly uncover it hidden in bizarre consignments, in the wastelands of public housing where it is the drug of choice.

Methamphetamine is entering a new and deadly age of addiction in Australia.

Drug seizures of amphetamines at Australian borders are at record levels.

Picture: Montana Meth ProjectSource:Supplied

Australian Customs and Border Protection Service hauls this year have detected methamphetamines and drug precursors in imports from paint scrapers to bathroom tiles, artificial flower arrangements, a blow-up air bed, steering wheel locks, a fax machine, bolt cutters, cling wrap, a stainless steel trolley, coffee machine and a baby's pram.

Border detections of precursor chemical for amphetamine production are on the increase.

The number and weight of seizures internally are up more than 50 per cent on last year.

Purity of the drug in some regions is as high as 80 per cent.

Seven years after Australia's last "ice age" turned injecting addicts into hallucination-ridden "zombies" on our streets, the new methamphetamine epidemic gaining a foothold across the nation is younger and deadlier than ever before.

As the Australian Crime Commission identified it to news.com.au as "Australia's highest risk illicit drug market" and the United Nations' Office on Drugs and Crime named it as "the top illicit drug threat in East and Southeast Asia", drug workers report how the drug is ruining young lives.

On the streets of a well-known Australian town, teenage boys are buying a substance called "shard".

According to youth drug worker, Steve Goater, the 15 and 16-year-olds may not even know what they are buying is actually methamphetamine.

Boys are smoking it and rapidly becoming addicted, some entering a state of psychosis after days turning into weeks of no sleep on a drug which fuels them with "an almost superhuman" sense of confidence.

"It's Australia's version of crack," Steve Goater, who works for Jigsaw Youth Mental Health, Drug and Alcohol Service in Victoria, told news.com.au.

"By calling it 'shard' instead of 'ice' it is less stigmatised because ice is known as a dirty drug.

"But shard is ice, and it's highly addictive. It gives these young people a grandiose feeling that they are powerful and indestructible.

"These are often people with low self-esteem. Suddenly they have the confidence to speak out.

"Then they start having delusions, paranoia, and hallucinations which are auditory and visual, as well as acute anxiety and suicidal ideation.

"It's also quite corrosive.

"[By the time] they are addicted they experience skin conditions, loss of weight.

"They become aggressive and lose their jobs, their friends and family members.

"It is very hard to get off. It has such a strong psychological addiction component."

Myanmar is a major source of the pill form of methamphetamine, shown here on a chart in the office of the Anti-Narcotic Task ForSource:AP

Jigsaw's statistics, from a survey released on Monday, show more than 30 per cent of young drug addicts aged between 16 and 25 years use methamphetamine as their drug of choice.

With an estimated 26 million users of varying forms of the drug globally, it is being called "the world's most dangerous drug".

Victoria has recorded "staggering"increases of methamphetamine use among young people, while Western Australia has seen a rise of small, "one pot" meth labs.

Domestic "one pot" crystal meth lab uncovered in a house in the Ozarks, the "meth lab capital" of the USSource:Supplied

A Medical Journal of Australia study found ambulance call-outs for ambulance call-outs to "ice" users trebled in the two years to July last year.

In August this year, Victorian police said at least 12 murders committed or tried by courts over the past two years, crystal methamphetamine was used by the killer or was otherwise a suspected factor in the crime.

They warned the widespread use of the drug was creating a new level of violence and turning unstable people into dangerous criminals.

Commander Lee was speaking after a multi-agency task force seized more than 200kg of crystal methamphetamine concealed last month by an international organised crime syndicate in the tyres of a truck which arrived in Melbourne by ship from China.

Victoria Police Acting Deputy Commissioner Steve Fontana said he did not believe the syndicate was linked to bikie gangs.

Bikie-gang amphetamine trafficking operation smashed by Tasmanian Police task force among members of the Rebels and Outlaws motoSource:News Limited

However, investigators had identified "a number of vulnerabilities in our borders" linked to "serious and organised crime, particularly international syndicates, that are operating in Victoria".

Commissioner Fontana described methamphetamine as "probably one of the most harmful substances we've come across in recent years in terms of impact on community and it's really challenging us".

"It seems to be the preference of a lot of young people," he said.

"More and more people are taking it and thinking that's OK. We've got to change that attitude."

The United Nations' Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC)'s November 2013 report on amphetamines in South East Asia and the Pacific, identifies Mexico as Australia's "most prominent embarkation point" - citing a single detection of 129.7kg of liquid methamphetamine in October 2011 - followed by Hong Kong, China and Canada.

In Asia and the Pacific in 2012, 227 million methamphetamine pills were seized - a more-than sevenfold increase since 2008 - along with 11.6 metric tonnes of crystalline methamphetamine.

Statistics for Australia's amphetamines trade were:

The weight of amphetamines-group detections increased by 230.1 per cent from 2010-2011 to 347.3kg in 2011-2012, the highest reported in the past decade.

Nationally, the number of amphetamines seizures increased by 35.5 per cent in 2010-2011 to 15,191 in 2011-2012.34

The weight of national seizures increased by 55.9 per cent to 1,572.6kg in 2011-2012.

Professor Michael Farrell, director of the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre, said methamphetamine was "trending".

"We are sitting in the middle of an environment where there is a hell of a lot of methamphetamine production and a lot of people taking it, so we are vulnerable," he said.

"Some of the seizures have been absolutely staggering, such as the half a tonne in Sydney in February."

Australia's largest "ice" seizure of 585 kilograms of methamphetamine worth $438 million in Sydney. Picture: ASource:Supplied

Professor Farrell said the two major issues for methamphetamine use were psychosis and the HIV risk it posed among the gay male population.

"Unfortunately some men who are using a lot of methamphetamines are eroding safe sexual practices and having unprotected sex," he said.

"In Europe there is a concerning trend called 'planking' which is group sex behaviour on methamphetamine.

"It's a very nasty drug.

"It causes violence, agitation and manic behaviour."

Methamphetamine precursor, cold and flu drug ContacNT, found in consignment of torches from China to Sydney in September. PicturSource:Supplied

An ambulance officer who spoke with news.com.au on the proviso he remained anonymous said "crystal meth is a major epidemic because it is so cheap".

"There is this cross over with smoking it," he said.

"People don't realise that is much more addictive than snorting it.

"In the old days people had a line of speed recreationally and then returned to their normal lives.

"Smoking it is like stepping stone to injecting it and suddenly a person who has been on it for a weekend is getting through a week on it.

"It can take over people's lives."

Classic "before and after" mugshots of methamphetamine drug addict in the US from the "faces of meth" caSource:News Limited

The ambulance officer described one case of a media executive who had started as "a recreational user and ended up losing his job and being taken off to rehab with psychosis".

He said common symptoms among "meth users" were aggression, particularly with police and other law enforcement authorities who have to restrain or deal with violent addicts' strong and paranoid reactions.

The Australian Crime Commission estimates about half of the $10 billion to $15 billion earned each year by organised crime comes from illicit drugs, including methylamphetamine in various forms.

Australian Federal Police Officers in Sydney display some of the $14.4 million worth of methamphetamine and $300,000 cash seizedSource:AAP

Richard Grant, the Australian Crime Commission's Acting Executive Director Operations said the "majority of organised crime groups which operate in Australia are involved in illicit drug markets, and collectively those markets generate more than half of the proceeds of crime in this country".

He said four forms of methylamphetamine were sold in Australia, tablets, powder (speed),

crystal (ice) and base (paste), and cited the "increasing purity" of seizures.

"National drug use monitoring surveys have identified increasing use and availability of methylamphetamine, particularly crystal methylamphetamine, over the past five years," he said.

"Most methylamphetamine that is consumed in Australia is produced domestically, in illicit clandestine laboratories (clan labs), by criminals.

"There is, however, also a significant level of importation of both methylamphetamine and precursor chemicals."

Joe Rihari, a drug rehabilitation counsellor at Drug Arm in Queensland, said methamphetamine was causing breakdowns in families and physical and mental deterioration in a growing number of young people.

"One case I know of a husband started using and lost everything," he said.

"His marriage ended in divorce, he lost his job, he moved out of the family home and started staying in groups with the same interests - a 'meth house'.

"These people can't switch off, they are unable to sleep for days, have psychotic episodes.

"And they suffer physical symptoms too, like losing large amounts of weight and their teeth rotting in what's called 'meth mouth'.

"Addiction happens very, very quickly, especially in people for who the drug is an escape.

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